Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsBest Tablet!!!
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2013
When purchasing a tablet I did not even consider this one at first. It still ran android 4.1 and I mainly just looked at specs when looking at tablets. So, I was looking at the Nexus 10, the iPad 4, iPad air, Samsung note 2014 edition, A variety of Windows tablets, and the Kindle Fire HD and HDX 8.9 . This review will show how I decided against these tablets and for the Xperia Tablet Z.
My main top choice was the note 2014. It had the best looking specs and it had the pen which seemed like it would be great for school. However, at the store, the pen seemed a little gimmicky. In addition, the home screen lagged. This one also weighed slightly more (although I didn't really check the weight of this one at the store). I didn't want any lag in a device that costs $500 and the note 2014 didn't seem to warrant the large price tag. Granted a software update may have (and I believe it did) fix the lag, my experience steered me away from the note 2014.
The iPad air with ios 7 at the store seemed like a children's toy. It was nice that it was light, however I couldn't get pas the fact that it seemed like a children's toy. In addition, I feel like ios is a very dumbed down OS, so that it feels easy to use for everyone. However, I like exploring features and tinkering with many other things which is pretty much impossible with ios. With ios what you see is what you get. The iPad was great for reading (one of my main reasons purchasing a tablet). However, other than that I saw no great use for it. So for the 500$ that an iPad costs, I decided against it.
I decided against an iPad 4 for the same reasons as the iPad air. In addition, the iPad 4 was significantly heavier, and had worse specs.
The Kindle Fire HD and HDX were very nice, however they lacked access to the Google play store. This was something I really wanted because I like all of the Google apps such as Hangouts, Chrome, Drive, etc. These apps are NOT available in the amazon app store. In addition, there are MANY other apps that are simply not available for the Kindle fire hd and hdx because they are not able to use the Amazon app store. So while these were beautiful devices, I decided against these as well.
Windows tablets seemed very nice. However, Windows RT lacks many apps that I like which is the same issue as the Kindles. In addition, some of the tablets were slightly on the heavy side. But other than that these were pretty much awesome devices. Unfortunately the apps were what made me decide against this. There were some tablets with the full windows 8, which is nice, however I believe that the specs on those were pretty underpowered to run a full windows OS and windows would have taken a significant portion of the available memory.
So it was down to the Nexus 10 and the Xperia tablet Z. Unfortunately, the store I was at did not have the Nexus 10 so I was not really able to check this out for myself. However, I knew that support for the Nexus 10 would be coming to an end and the new Nexus 10 was coming closer to being announced. The specs on the Nexus 10 were superior and the price seemed great. So, the only other reason I would not have purchased a Nexus 10 instead would have been the .1 lbs more. The Nexus and the note 2014 do have the most superior screens, however from what I've been reading most content is 1080p or below, so that is negligible.
The instant I picked up the Xperia Tablet Z I was amazed. It was EXTREMELY light. It is actually just about .06 lbs more than the iPad air, however this was fine for me because of the bigger screen. Playing around with it seemed fluid with no lag (slight lag now on the home screen if I have a lot of apps open which is normal, otherwise it's great). The lag is removable if I use a different launcher such as Nova, however the Xperia one looks great, so I use that anyways. In addition, the Sony version of android 4.1 was actually pretty great. It was better than the updated versions due to their changed UI which was optimized for tablets. This one is water proof and has expandable storage (I added a 4gb microsd which is awesome!). It also has a remote function (note 2014 does too). It has an 8gb rear camera and a front camera. In addition it runs every app I want and need. The 224 ppi screen looks pretty good as well and videos look great. Reading on Google Play books and Adobe reader is nice and smooth as well. Magazines look beautiful as well. At first the widescreen format seemed kind of awkward when used in portrait mode, however now that I am used to it it is fantastic for everything I do. The MHL capabilities for TV out and USB OTG to connect peripherals are nice, but I did not test them. I was also able to find this tablet in like new condition on Amazon for $300 (for some reason it was the Japanese version which didn't change a thing) so it sweetened the deal. My only 2 issues which aren't really issues were: 1. the ports start opening by themselves after light use (these need to be closed for the water-proof capabilities) and 2. battery takes a while to charge. However, the battery lasts a long time so that isn't an issue. The port covers opening up is an issue that needs to be fixed, however I don't really use my tablet near any water so it's fine. Although I don't know how it would hold up in my backpack if it was raining outside because of the ports opening. However no other tablet really has this feature and the amazing lightness of this tablet made it the PERFECT choice for me. It did everything I need and it did it great. If you are looking for a perfect tablet, you can end your search here. Trust me! If you have any questions about this or any tablet feel free to ask me :)
UPDATE: I forgot to mention a couple other nice things with this tablet. It has multitasking abilities (you can open widgets and resize them and use them and the app that is open. For example I can have a web page or a calculator open while I am watching a video. There is also an FM receiver. I wouldn't put a new rom over this. It is a great OS. I can also download music or videos from computers on my home network using the Walkman app that comes built in.
UPDATE 2: Turns out the android 4.3 update came out, however I was not able to get it because I was given a Japanese version from the seller. I was able to have English on my old version and it worked just like it should have, other than this little issue. I assume it would have came eventually, but it's been a while since the US version was released. I did not want to root it or tamper with the original Sony firmware. I am surprised I was able to put a stock US version of the android 4.3 operating system on this rather easily! I just downloaded flashtools, downloaded the firmware file I needed (ftf file), and then I turned off the decice, disconnected, made sure drivers were installed (enable unsigned drivers on windows 8), clicked the lightning symbol clicked flashmode, found my file, clicked ok, and then held the volume down button and connected device and just waited for it to do its thing. It is much easier than it sounds!!! Made my life a million times easier! Now in the future I'll also get the American updates and I'll get them on time. Just make sure you use the correct firmware for your device. I'll update this with any pros/cons regarding the firmware.
Update 3: After 3 years this tablet is still running very well! I ended up giving this to my mom a long time ago as I don't really have a need for such a large tablet. I now have a smaller Samsung Galaxy Pro 8.4 which Samsung decided not to support for long. If given the choice I would definitely buy more Sony products as they are high quality, beautiful, and last very long!
